Disclaimer: My friends and I belong to ourselves. All Lord of the Rings characters tortured here belong to J.R.R. Tolkien.
A/N: I got pretty good responses on the first chapter, so I decided to post another. Especially since my friends, especially "A", will kill me if I don't continue this. You know, I wasn't kidding about guessing which character I am. I'd like to know whether my writing is totally transparent or not (it probably is). I apologize for the formatting on this thing, but ff.n randomly messes up my bold and italics when they show up in large quantities so be prepared. Also in one section it refused to do proper double-spacing, but I expect you'll know that when you see it. But anyway:
kippinator: Hmm…cheese…I don't know about that, I'm not much in the habit of taking plot suggestions but we'll see what happens later in the story.
Siri: Yes, the wormhole is cheesy but it provides some entertainment value so I figured why not? I enjoyed coming up with the intelligent-sounding adjectives.
Elven Star: Yeah, I like the decent slashless part too. Don't worry, I plan to post many more LOTR fics…*evil grin*
Jenny-juju-bug: I'm afraid I don't deserve the comment about the lack of inside jokes, but if they were that unobtrusive I'll just shut up while I'm ahead.
edgy wedgy: Uh…thanks…I guess. If you want, I could make some choice comments about boys…
And now, another installment in the adventures of your unfavorite teenage girls—Ashlin, Bethany, Karolyn, Liza, Mindy, Mona, Morgan, and Trina! Join them as they continue where we left off last time:
Gimli tried manfully (dwarffully?) to pull his ax out of the tree where he had inadvertently left it. Unfortunately, the effort was too much for him and he went tumbling head over heels, a victim of equal and opposite reaction. Everyone tried to stifle their giggles as they watched him pick himself up indignantly.
Everyone, that is, except Mindy, who was much too busy with other matters to notice. She had once been voted "Most Likely to Legally Change Her Name to Baggins" and had indeed been considering it seriously for some time. At the moment, though, she would settle for a date with Frodo, whom she was still clutching in a definite excess of affection.
"Don't wowwy, Fwodo," she crooned happily, running one hand through his adorably curly hair. "Evwything's gonna be all wight, Mindy pwomises. Now how about dinner tonight?" Frodo tried to scream for help but Mindy's possessive stranglehold cut off his air and he simply gasped helplessly, which was probably the worst thing he could have done under the circumstances. Little did he know that Mindy found him irresistibly cute when he did his fish impression, causing her grip to tighten and her eyes to glaze over in bliss.
Meanwhile, reality was starting to set in—somewhat. Trina and Liza had promptly forgotten Gimli's little mishap and were gazing raptly at the unfortunate Aragorn and Legolas, who were beginning to look around for an escape route. By the look of things, Karolyn would be only too happy to join them in a bid for freedom. Mona, as usual, was paying absolutely no attention to anybody, being too busy staring at the trees in awe.
"Wow," she breathed. "We're in Middle-earth!" Liza rolled her eyes in frustration, wishing Mona would just disappear and let her have some time with her beloved Elf. Of course, Mona never disappeared; that seemed to be a corollary of Murphy's Law. Still, hope springs eternal...especially when one is in the company of Legolas Greenleaf, the cutest archer of all time. Bearing this thought in mind, Liza resolved to be patient with her impossibly dense friend and give her time to adjust.
"Yeeeeeeeees, Mona," she ground out through clenched teeth. "What do you know?" [Not much, obviously...] "Hmm...Aragorn...Frodo...Legolas..." Casting an admiring glance at her helpless captive, she finished, "I would say there's a SLIGHT CHANCE we're in Middle-earth!" Mona blinked in sudden comprehension and went back to staring at the trees.
Trina ignored everyone except Aragorn, who was trembling with fear. Alas, the brave Dúnadan who had faced Orcs, Nazgûl, and assorted other dark creatures now shrank before a power more evil than all of these put together—a teenage girl. Sighing deeply, Trina took his strong, manly hand in her slender, lily-white ones.
"Aragorn, my love," she murmured in a barely audible sigh, "will you go to the movies with me on Saturday?" Aragorn, quite understandably, looked puzzled.
"Movies?" he asked skeptically, raising a dark eyebrow so intense and handsome that Trina thought her heart would burst. Her eyes were fixed on his dark, mysterious face in adoration as she smiled up at him in sheer ecstasy. Alas, the maiden's mind was so affected by Aragorn's proximity that she had forgotten that the concept of "movies" might need some explaining. Instead of answering his confused question, she merely leaned back against the struggling Ranger and indulged herself momentarily in happy daydreams of murdering Arwen and Éowyn so that there would be no obstacles to her marriage with her one true love.
Happily, Trina threw her arms around Aragorn's neck, oblivious to the tortured gasps that resulted. "Oh, I knew you would!" she cried joyfully as she planted a small kiss on his cheek. Aragorn screamed and started clawing at the infected area violently, hoping to scrub it clean before this strange illness spread. Trina mercifully let go of his neck for a minute to go inform her friends of her good fortune, and he fell to the ground writhing in pain and terror.
Naturally, Karolyn was doing her best to ignore all the mushy stuff going on around her, but it was far from easy when she was surrounded by friends proposing to characters from that most evil of book series, The Lord of the Rings. She began backing slowly away from the horrific scene and bumped into Gimli, who had fallen down again and was doing his best to get up. They stared at each other for a moment in commiserating silence, two kindred souls trapped in a place where they desperately did not want to be...
Abruptly, Legolas was distracted from torture-by-Liza by the sound of crackling leaves and breaking twigs—the sure sign of inexperienced hikers. He tore himself away from his captor long enough to pull an arrow from his quiver and ready himself for attack—
"Mindy!" a voice shouted. "What the heck is going on around here?" To Legolas' great dismay, three more teenage girls came crashing through the undergrowth to join the group in the clearing. Frodo's eyes widened at this latest calamity and he struggled harder than ever to evade Mindy's grasp, but she was having none of it. Panting slightly with the effort, she dragged him forward.
"Morgan! Bethany! Ashlin! Thank goodness you're here! And just look who we found—Frodo!" she cried rapturously, showing off her trophy. Bethany and Ashlin hid mocking grins, but Morgan's face turned from pink to bright red to a lovely shade of purple.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOO! FRODO IS MINE!" she roared, fists clenching and unclenching spasmodically in her rage. Everyone else backed away slowly, very thankful that they had no such silly obsessions. Frodo whimpered and tried to run, but Mindy held him even more tightly and advanced threateningly on the unfortunate Morgan.
"Bring it on," she invited, sneering contemptuously. "He loves me, don't you, Fro-Fro?" The alleged Fro-Fro was trembling too hard to answer, but the reply would doubtless not have been to her liking. The two girls began circling each other, extending and retracting their fingernails menacingly.
Trina decided that her rather one-sided conversation with Aragorn could wait until this problem was resolved. Clearly, diplomatic action was necessary if open war was to be avoided. She stepped forward smoothly and asked, "So how did you guys get here anyway? You didn't come in the tornado thingy with us." Liza and Mona rolled their eyes at this amateurish description of the interspatial hypertemporal transreality wormhole but remained silent with an effort.
"Well," Bethany explained, "I had just finished playing the ten-minute, three-movement piano piece that I composed myself—"
"Perfectly as always," Ashlin muttered. Bethany gave her a dark look and continued.
"—And the three of us were just talking out in the band hall when suddenly this hole sort of opened in the floor right under us and whoosh—" She demonstrated with one hand. "Here we were!" Ashlin nodded in agreement with this detailed explanation of the phenomenon, but Morgan had totally ignored the whole conversation and was still fixated on "rescuing" Frodo from the obviously unworthy Mindy.
The group stood in silence, fascinated by the fight unfolding before their eyes. What could they do? Obviously direct physical interference was out of the question, as one would run the risk of being torn to bits...
Amid the general helplessness, Mona abruptly realized what was going on and tore her attention away from the fascinating vegetation of Fangorn Forest. She practically bounced over and said excitedly, "Guess what? I know a song!" Karolyn made a strangled noise of exasperation, but several of the others looked at Mona in awe, realizing that this could very well be the distraction that would postpone if not prevent hostilities. They all held their breath, hoping and praying.
Miraculously, both Morgan and Mindy turned to stare at her, half in annoyance and half in fear. "What song?" Morgan asked at last, breaking the tense silence. Mona's face lit up.
"I thought you'd never ask!" she exclaimed happily, striking a pose and taking a deep breath. "It goes something like this:
Ho! Tom Bombadil, Tom Bombadillo!By water, wood, and hill, by the reed and willow,
By fire, sun, and moon, harken now and hear us!
Come, Tom Bombadil, for our need is near us!
Now wasn't that great?" Mona demanded breathlessly, grinning at everyone, who grimaced back. Frodo, Aragorn, and Legolas had all tried to hide behind each other, but only Frodo had succeeded by virtue of his height. Gimli had fallen over backwards trying to get away from the infernal noise and was begging someone—anyone—to kill the girl, who was obviously an agent of Sauron sent to torture them. All Mona's friends were used to this kind of thing and treated it more as a nuisance than anything else.
"ENCORE!" Mona yelled, beginning to caper around in circles in a most alarming way. Several shrieks of pure terror resulted from this, but the callous girl paid no attention and launched once more into "song":
"Hey dol! merry dol! ring a ding dillo!Ring a dong! hop along! fal lal the willow!
Tom Bom, jolly Tom, Tom Bombadillo!"
A collective sigh of relief erupted at the close of this verse, but apparently it was premature—the torment was not over yet. Everyone plugged their ears as best they could and cowered as she began again.
"Hey! Come derry dol! Hop along, my hearties! Hobbits! Ponies all! We are fond of parties. Now let the fun begin! Let us si—"The world may never know how long this would have gone on, for in the middle of the dread word "sing", Mona let out a single shriek and collapsed insensible on the forest floor. Ten shocked faces stared at Legolas, who was standing over the unconscious form, the rock in his hands still raised. He smiled sheepishly at them and managed to say, "Sorry about that, folks—" before he was drowned out by a standing ovation.
^^^^^
Ten minutes later, Mona lay bound with spare bowstrings. Legolas began to apologize yet again for his somewhat impulsive action. "Look, I'm really sorry that happened, but if she had sung 'Ho, Tom Bombadil' one more time..." His fists clenched involuntarily with the righteous indignation of an Elf forced to listen to what others call "music".
"Nobody blames you, Leggy-las," Liza crooned, smoothing his blond hair. "We all felt the same way." Legolas ignored her existence totally and began talking to Aragorn about the dangers of traveling in woods infested by young women. Not that the Ranger needed any sort of warning on this subject with Trina nearby, but it gave them a reason to pretend that this was just a normal day, totally bereft of strange teenagers and horrifying songs.
Meanwhile, Bethany had recovered from the initial shock of sudden transport to a fictional universe and was beginning to look in Legolas' direction more than he liked. Liza had also noticed this strange development and glared jealously at Bethany whenever she had the opportunity. Everyone else fervently hoped this wouldn't turn into another feud like the one that had been fortunately forestalled by Mona, but thankfully nothing seemed to be happening—yet.
Karolyn had a nasty feeling that her sanity wouldn't last long under these circumstances. After all, she could hardly be expected to survive with Aragorn, Legolas, and Frodo in the vicinity, let alone their admirers! But how could she get away? The last thing she wanted was to be lost in a living forest!
She began restlessly striding around the edge of the clearing, wondering when the heck her idiotic friends would stop drooling over book characters and start paying attention to the fact that they were currently stuck in the woods with no help except a midget, a guy who couldn't even be depended on to wash his own hair, a decidedly girly archer with long blond braids, and clumsiness personified. Speaking of...Gimli apparently had the same idea of pacing in circles but, unfortunately, was going in the opposite direction. This created some awkwardness, as he was notoriously bad at getting out of the way at the best of times, let alone when distracted by morose thoughts of his lack of fangirls.
To put it bluntly, they collided. It was, of course, all Gimli's fault, as he'd apparently done it deliberately. They both lay stunned for a moment, but Karolyn recovered first and picked herself up angrily. Just one more piece of proof for her argument against Lord of the Rings!
The dwarf seemed to be having some trouble getting up, so Karolyn offered him her hand against her better judgment. He accepted it after some hesitation, still muttering that he really didn't need the help but if it would make her happy who was he to object? After a few tries, their combined efforts got him on his feet again and he stood there scowling and generally looking like his normal cheery self.
They glared at each other for a few minutes, mutual hostility flaring up between them. Then something snapped. Karolyn yelled, "I hate this!" Nobody except Gimli heard her, being too busy flirting or trying to escape. Gimli looked somewhat startled, but couldn't help agreeing with the sentiment. He nodded glumly and wished he were back home with people his own height.
"I know! Nobody around here ever pays any attention to me," he complained self-pityingly. In these circumstances, Karolyn knew exactly how that felt. Was it possible that at least one Lord of the Rings character could be tolerable? Against her will, she felt her heart warming toward the only other person who understood what she was going through…
Abruptly, yet another noise distracted everyone. "Not again," Legolas moaned softly, but there was no mistaking the distinctive sounds, soft though they were.
Someone was coming through the forest toward them.
Who will join our "intrepid" group next? Will Gimli and Karolyn elope? When will Mona wake up? All these questions will be answered in the next chapter!I'm really enjoying this and I hope you are too. Note the total Mary Sue-ness of it all, including total defiance of the plot by bringing Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, and Frodo together in Fangorn Forest and our mysterious ability to speak Westron. By the way, nobody even tried to guess who I was! Is it that obvious? Probably…But let me just say that this is more or less true to life: "Bethany" really is a piano genius, "Karolyn" really does hate Lord of the Rings with a vengeance, and "Mona" really does memorize random poems from books. Speaking of which, all three poems used here are copied directly from The Fellowship of the Ring, hard though I find it to believe that Tolkien would write anything so obnoxious. Quick apology to "Bethany", "Morgan", and "Ashlin": The reason they weren't in the first chapter is that I originally planned it for five people: a Legolas-lover, an Aragorn-lover, a Frodo-lover, an undecided, and someone who just plain hates Lord of the Rings. But then they read the chapter and wanted to be in it, so I put them in. Actually, it'll be good for the story, since this brings rivalries into play. Unfortunately, my friend "Isadora" didn't want to be in the story, so I regretfully left her out. Anyway...the third chapter will hopefully be coming soon, along with several more Lord of the Rings stories, so watch for them!